


Coming to the Precipice

by Mercale



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:17:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercale/pseuds/Mercale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk Strider grew up alone, stranded in the middle of the sea. But as he grew older he grew had the chance to meet more and more people through the window of his computer. </p><p>But it isn't until he first gets to know Jake English that he realizes what he's been missing in his life. And it isn't until the day before everything was about to come to a head that he realizes that he can't do anything to protect the one he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming to the Precipice

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr user Somecrazygirl was one of my Homestuck Secret Santa 2012 giftees. At this point I’ve heard nothing from them, so I’m just going to go and put this fic up anyway. This is my first time working with Dirk, or really writing comfortably in second person, so I’ll just put it here and let you come to your own conclusions.

Coming To The Precipice

Growing up is hard, and the problem is that he's the only one that can really understand.

Okay, so maybe that isn't exactly true, but it's true enough. As different as the two of you are, there are a lot of ways in which you are the same. Both living isolated lives despite your wishes. Both without a guardian to speak of. Both in some sort of 'natural' world where death awaits around every corner. The major difference is the fact that around his corners are monstrous white beasts. Around yours are countless miles of ocean, giant red bugs with armor stronger than the best of your irony, and the only company to be had is that which you construct or find at the other end of your computer.

And even that was a relatively recent thing.

Your brother had thought of pretty much everything when stocking the apartment for your arrival. He'd found some people who were willing to dedicate their lives to waiting for you, to seeing you into your safe haven. People who had found willing initiates to all things ironic who had in turn waited and found more people and trained them and they waited and so on and so forth all the way down to the last in the line, which had been a group of carapaces who hadn't quite understood what was going on but had known it was important. They'd found you, saved you and Cal from the water long before it was a real risk, and then brought you here. A few had stayed behind to see to your needs as an infant, but even they had passed on not long before your fourth birthday and you were starting to get a hang on the whole language thing. It was so long ago that you barely even remembered any of it, and only knew it for sure because your little future-alien friend that you'd met through your computer when you were ten told you all about it and your brother and why you were here (not that you didn't know about your brother and some of why you were here already from the videos your bro had left you).

Roxy hadn't been a thing until you were ten either. It had been uu who had facilitated that. Who had walked you (and probably Roxy) through all the steps until your computers were reaching out to each other beyond the limits of the tiny watery worlds that you knew. She was different, had lived a different life, never truly alone. There had been more carapaces where she had arrived, she had been cared for throughout most of her life by those creatures that had seemingly understood the implication of her arrival. She'd been friends with uu for years by the time you'd met her, she'd already started drinking, she'd already started being the Roxy you knew, and you had only just finished building your first robot. It was never really that you felt that she had it easier. Never that. It was more like you knew she had things differently enough that she couldn't understand quite what you were going through, just as you couldn't understand quite what she was either.

It had changed on your twelfth birthday. uu had been implying for a full month that she had something special arranged for you and Roxy. That you were getting a gift that was without compare: connection. Beyond the limits of the waters. Beyond the quiet little solitude that was the only thing protecting you from the Empress. Beyond the limitations that timing had placed upon you. She gave you the gift of the past, a small window to it where you could look back and actually reach out to touch people. Not many people. Too few people. Only two people. And not the ones you'd thought to find. Not Roxy's mother. Not your brother. Sure, they existed somewhere in the time you were given little windows of access to, but the gift had been something you needed far more than your brother, and that you hadn't even realized you wanted.

You had been given Jane Crocker and Jake English for your twelfth birthday.

Jane wasn't like anyone you'd ever known before. She was so different that at first it was almost impossible to wrap your head around. She lived in a place where there were countless others living around her, and she lived with her father. There were cars (which you'd only ever seen pictures of), parties, movies being released, and everything she ever could have wanted out of life. Came with being an heiress to the Crocker Corp legacy. Not that she ever believed anything you and Roxy said about the Batterwitch. In fact, she'd actually blocked you the first time you tried to talk to her. It had taken five months for her to unblock you, and when you'd started to talk to her again, you'd both pretended the first conversations had never taken place. You'd learned to deal with Jane on her own terms—she was too strong to allow you to do anything else and you respected her for that—and it had almost made her into a better friend than Roxy.

No, it was Jake English that really made you wonder. While you'd opted to talk to Jane first, Roxy had gone at Jake like a woman on a mission. You weren't quite sure what that mission was, but when you had reported back to each other on what you'd learned about these two people you were given access to, she'd had so much more to say than you had. You'd offered Jane's screenname, the fact that she was indeed heiress to the batterwitch, and that she didn't realize just what she was dealing with (all of which uu had confirmed in a later conversation, adding a rather 'helpful' DUH before pointing out that the Batterwitch didn't have her unveiling for a few years). What Roxy had to say about Jake, though, that had caught your interest. He'd been so friendly, so quick to open up, had enjoyed the whole 'we're from your post-apocalyptic future' joke (that hadn't been a joke), and that he spoke like some kind of British dude from that show that you and Roxy watched together over your video calls and mocked. She'd told you about how he enjoyed blue alien chicks (he'd asked her if she was one when she claimed she was from the future) and that he loved to explore his deserted island home. The more Roxy told you the more you thought you were getting the short end of the bargain.

So you cheated. Both of you had decided before you even started pestering these two new people that you'd limit yourselves. She'd have a month to deal with Jake, to get to know him, before bringing you in to introduce you as a friend. You'd have a month with Jane to do the same. Problem was you'd already blown that window of opportunity. Jane wasn't going to be talking any time soon, so that night, after lying in bed with Lil' Cal for a few hours and staring at the ceiling in utter boredom, you'd gotten up, snuck to your computer as if Roxy could see you coming, and sent your first message to Jake. It was enough, you had decided, to at least say hello. It should have been enough. It would have been enough were it not for the fact that for some unspeakable reason, Jake had still been awake. Or he'd just gotten up. Something weird with timezones like that. You weren't sure. It was never something you had to deal with much. Either way, you'd said hello, and as you shifted windows on your computer to open up one of your brother's shitty, ironic movies so you could turn on the director's commentary and listen to his voice (it always felt like he was aiming every word at you, maybe because he had been), there had been a little ping of sound, and a flashing window.

That was how it had all started. A connection across time and space that only took place because you'd been lucky enough to reach the guy before/after sleep.

The first meeting had been a lot less eventful than Roxy's, to be honest. A smattering (his word, not yours) of conversation on a large variety of topics. It had been so wonderful to be having a real conversation with someone other than Roxy, so soothing to know there was someone else out there, that you'd even started to fall asleep at your desk. It wasn't until you'd been badgered by several incessant pings in a row that you'd awoken to the fact that you needed sleep. You'd excused yourself, and Jake had asked if you'd talk the same time the next day. When you'd said no he'd seemed disappointed, but only so long as it took you to type out a continuation of your message, telling him that you'd talk before that if possible. As soon as sleep lost out to your will to bask in his presence. He'd laughed, you'd smiled, and for the first time in many years you'd managed to fall asleep without having to listen to your brother mockingly address interviewers or actors on the commentary track of the “Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff: The Movovie” collector's edition. Upon awaking the next day, you'd actually been proud.

It happened slowly after that. Not over days or weeks like all those damn cliché movies, but over years. Daily conversations where you learned more about Jake than you'd even known about you brother. Nights were spent researching the time that Jake lived in so that you could better converse. It was one thing to be a cool guy all on your own time, on your own terms, but keeping up the cool kid reputation with a guy from that time was a bit harder. Especially since you had to be up on all the things that were going on just in case Jake heard about them from Jane and asked you. Not that he ever did. Instead you just spouted useless history trivia just to prove you could. And with each day and night caught up in research, caught up in talking, caught up in him, more and more of your time without him seemed to turn to thoughts of him. Halfway through finishing Sawtooth you'd gotten sidetracked contemplating another robot that you could make for Jake as a sparring partner. In the middle of watching a favorite scene from one of Bro's movies you would think about how much Jake might enjoy some bit of dialog or need a piece of irony explained to him, and wondered how long it would be until the right time was reached so you could share with Jake.

Every day you spoke to him.

Every day you thought of him.

Every day, you realized later, you grew to care about him more.

Long past the point when Jane allowed you to talk to her, when Roxy needed your support to keep up the hiding of your lives in the future, you were caught up with Jake. It was pathetic, not that it mattered. It had grown, like things like this did, slowly and deeply, and too important to try and get rid of.

You'd almost said it once. Almost come right out there and said it. Told him everything about your feelings. But you'd sat there, staring at the flashing line in the empty chat client entry box, and realized that you couldn't. That there were too many lies, too many differences, too great of a distance for you to even begin to bridge. The simplest truth of the matter was that Jake English was long dead. That he'd never amounted to anything in his life. That like the Crocker Corp Heiress, he was destined to go missing on 11/11/11, and there was nothing you could do about it. Dead, gone, forgotten by the world except for you. And who would remember Jake English except for you and Roxy? The last humans on the Earth, doomed forever to remember the only friends they had were dead long before they ever met them. How pathetic was that?

For a week you'd said nothing. Jake had been so insistent, pestering you at every turn, and you'd said nothing. Wouldn't it be easier to just stop all of this foolishness now rather than in the future? It was hard to even keep track of time these days. How could you be sure that it wasn't right around the corner? That you and Roxy hadn't calculated something wrong and that you'd lose them both at any moment?

Lucky for you, Roxy and Jane weren't having any of that foolishness. Jane had sent you increasingly long messages reprimanding you for your behavior towards your 'best bro.' Roxy had been more scathing in her far shorter messages. Apparently she'd already come to the same conclusion a while before. Yelled at him for giving up on one of the few good things they had. Told him that every moment was precious, far more precious for the fact that they knew to treasure them. Wasn't it better to have the memories?

So at last he'd given in. Replied to Jake like nothing had happened, claimed some kind of brother related shenanigans, and he'd just accepted it, welcomed you back, and acted like nothing was wrong. And you'd almost told him again. Stared at the screen and tried to will your fingers into typing the simple words.

Instead you told him everything. Everything you promised yourself that you'd never say, that you'd promised Roxy that you would, that you'd hinted at for years. About the future, about the past, about your brother's death, about the troll Empress, about being alone in the world. That you were meant for something greater, because you couldn't believe in anything else. It felt like you'd spoken for hours, and you were ready for rejection with each new statement, and yet he'd listened. He'd accepted. He'd believed.

Believed your words.

Believed in you.

You were bros and you'd never lead him astray.

And yet here you are, half-leaning, half-hiding in one of the countless abandoned lower pagoda levels in the Land of Tombs and Krypton, asking him to do something that you feel guilty for asking even as you see the words form on your chat client screen. You know what tomorrow is, maybe better than anyone else. You can feel it, somewhere inside of yourself, that tomorrow is the day that the game changes. It's more than Jane's birthday, has to be. The day you've been told is coming, it's going to be tomorrow, and it terrifies you.

April thirteenth: the day everything begins and ends.

The very thought of it terrifies you. Sure, you think you know part of what is coming. The ruins have hinted at it all over your session. An unstoppable evil, a supreme battle between the forces of life and the universe's continue, and the force of death and entropy. Tomorrow should be the day that the brother that you've seen just once before will finally arrive, when you could have so many questions answered—though you're certain that you won't get any answers at all. Tomorrow is the beginning of the end of your session, of your lives, of the unbelievable story you've been living.

And something deep down inside tells you that to make it through it all, you'll have to die.

Is it weird that all you can think about is finding a way to save him? To spare him the death and destruction and sorrow that will undoubtedly come? The chance to see his grandmother, only to see her killed once more. The chance for them to meet the people that they were supposed to know but who had died before they could know them. The chance to change the course of history, to make a universe thanks to the coming of the heroes that they were fated never to be.

You want to lock him up deep in the core of the deepest tomb in all of the land, and refuse to let him out. You want to set Sawtooth on the door and command him to keep Jake safe. You've seen him dead once in a shitty Dersite tabloid and you don't think you can handle it again. Then at least his death had been painless, peaceful even. Tomorrow promises far different things. Tomorrow promises war, chaos, destruction. The part of you that is the Prince of Heart, the Destroyer of Souls, senses something final approaching. Something that even you can't escape. A doom lingering over everything around you.

Problem is you can't protect him. Never could, never will. You aren't a knight in shining armor, come to save the swooning prince charming. Hell, by all rights you're the prince and he should be the one to save you—too bad he couldn't be a knight instead of a page—but what does it matter? Jake isn't that kind of guy. The same thing that drew you to him in the first place, the fact that you both grew up so alone in a dangerous place, is the very thing that will keep him from you through all of this. Jake, like your Bro long ago, was born to be a hero, and heroes didn't actually get happy endings like all those shitty movies implied. They died in the line of their work, or they were turned upon by the people who they helped, or something like that. Yet they always threw themselves forward, into the thick of the worst of it all. Try as you might, you'd never be able to keep him out of all of this.

For all that you wanted to protect him, it wasn't your place. You're not a hero. You're a prince. Real princes were raised to be tacticians, generals not foot soldiers like Jake. Real princes pointed to a trouble spot and sent their men into the thick of the fight, using them to the best advantage despite the cost. It was what you were, what you'd always been. The puppet master behind the scenes, pushing your friends into this position because it was the position you were fated to be in. You were fate's tool, and it wasn't through with any of you yet. You'd set all of the pieces up, the mastermind behind the 'leader' that Jane was. And tomorrow, the world was going to knock them down.

And there was nothing you could do to protect him from it.


End file.
